Light in the Mist
by Lyre of Sheliak
Summary: Sakura goes back in time and makes a new place for herself in the world. She makes an impression, too. Written for Mornelithe falconsbane as part of WDLF2.


When the war's few survivors hatch their last, desperate plan, Sakura volunteers to take Hidden Mist. It's the job no one wanted: none of them hail from that village, and it's widely known as the worst hellhole in the Elemental Nations. But someone has to do it, and Sakura knows she has the best chance of success. So she hugs her friends goodbye, and they throw themselves back through time.

For once, she's glad that she doesn't come from a clan. It means that she can keep her own name, when most of the travelers can't.

(She'll see them again, someday; they're too good to die easily. She hopes it's not on the other side of a battlefield.)

It's easy enough to set herself up in Hidden Mist. Their organization has been a shambles since the Second Mizukage died, and it's no challenge to convince them that she comes of unexceptional origins, has only begun to shine now that her life is on the line. Even holding back, she's soon known as the best medic they have—though, Sakura thinks privately, that's mostly because their medics are terrible. Rather than saying so, she starts passing on her knowledge, in bits and pieces.

Sakura makes herself indispensable, and she watches.

History will call the Third Mizukage a ruthless leader. Sakura thinks that's too generous. The Third Hokage was ruthless—well, except for Orochimaru. _Danzou _was ruthless, without exception. Third Mizukage is just vicious.

And stupid. That too.

The result of that viciousness and stupidity is a Hidden Village busy tearing itself apart at the seams, where no one keeps good records for fear of being condemned by them, and no one dares point out obvious problems because the whistleblower is always the first to be blamed.

So there's room for a healer with Whirlpool-pink hair to slip through the cracks. As long as she's on their front lines healing their soldiers, no one cares to look beyond the surface, let alone underneath the underneath. (Sakura spares a thought for her teachers, and how they'd judge her new comrades.)

Of course, Mist shinobi don't have the habit of protecting medics, and all shinobi aim for them in battle. But that's more annoying than worrying for Sakura. She can't use her monstrous strength—and that burns, abandoning her shishou's legacy—so she fights with chakra scalpels, showing off her control for all to see. She becomes expert in genjutsu, something she'd never pursued before, though she'd always had a knack.

She'd never had time for genjutsu before. Now she has all the time in the world, it seems. It's practical, keeping the enemy from seeing her while she works, hiding the wounded from them as well.

The enemies she fights call her the Witch of the Bloody Mist, say she fights with blades of light and vanishes into fog. Later, when she adapts Tsunade's Strength of a Hundred to give herself monstrous speed instead, they say that she can appear out of nowhere to hide the wounded on the battlefield, driving the shinobi trying to finish them off away with nightmares.

Sakura finds it all flattering, to be honest. And she keeps healing Mist's wounded.

Hidden Mist loves her for it. More, they revere her.

Hidden Leaf loved Tsunade-shishou for her medical breakthroughs, for her reforms, for being the only one of the Sannin who came back. Sakura can't give Mist the kind of structural reforms Tsunade gave Leaf. (The tactical part of her brain suspects it wouldn't be a good idea; might tip them too close to winning their current war, which is unacceptable as long as this kage leads them.) The medical knowledge she imparts is limited by circumstance—she can't take a permanent apprentice, not yet—and by the need to avoid suspicion, avoid anything that ties her too closely to the Slug Princess. But somehow, she's become a legend to Mist—a legend that stayed loyal, a legend that heals her own people instead of slaughtering them.

Hidden Mist sees Sakura and they see something they barely recognize as hope.

This could be dangerous, she knows. If she seems to gain too much of a power base, the Mizukage will move against her, and she'll be forced to make her own move much sooner than she meant to.

Let him do it. She'll be ready, and she won't be alone.


End file.
